Trivia / Caddyshack

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In the scene where the Bishop (played by veteran actor Henry Wilcoxon) is having his best round of golf ever during a thunderstorm, he misses an easy putt, looks skyward and yells "rat farts!", and is immediately struck down by a bolt of lightning. The background music in this scene was from The Ten Commandments, in which Wilcoxon played the part of Pentaur.

Audience and critical appreciation of the film deepened over the decades since its release, but Harold Ramis' appreciation of his troubled directorial debut never did. "All I see are compromises and things we could have done better", he said in the late 2000s.

Chevy Chase hated the sequel, even during production, so much so that after a take, he mentioned to the producer to call him when a laugh track had been added, and stormed off in disgust.

The Danza: Jackie Mason's character in the second film is named Jack Hartounian. Which, oddly enough, is a combination of Mason's first name (or a shortened version thereof) and the surname of his character from The Jerk.

Affected both films to varying extents. On the first film Jon Peters kept demanding that various ideas that he'd had be thrown into the film, but Harold Ramis was able to carry out his instructions in such a way that they didn't affect the quality of the end product, or even flat-out refuse when he felt Peters's suggestions were seriously crossing the line. On the second film, however, Peters was screwing around with things (including firing original director Alan Metter before shooting started) right from the start, which ended up accounting for the poor quality of the end product.

The only reason a sequel exists, as the executives pushed ahead with production even after every original actor besides Chevy Chase walked out upon seeing the script.

The "Cinderella story" scene was only in the script as: "Carl hits flowers with a grass whip." Director Harold Ramis told him to just pretend he was a kid, acting out his sports fantasy.

Bill Murray's scenes had no script written for them at all. He was on set for a total of six days and whenever he got started up, they just let the camera roll on him and see where it went.

Hostility on the Set: The idea of Chevy Chase and Bill Murray being in the same scene filled everyone with horror, as the two almost got into a brawl backstage on Saturday Night Live. Amazingly, the two were completely professional and showed no sign of their previous feud. That said, Chase's improvising threw Cindy Morgan off to the extent that they came to blows, whilst Ted Knight, completely at sea with this style of comedy, didn't get on with Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, or his younger costars.

Missing Trailer Scene: The theatrical and TV trailers show some extra shots and deleted scenes. These include:

Danny almost gets hit by a throwing knife while he is in the kitchen;

Danny juggling with golf balls;

A couple of extra shots of gopher including a scene where he dances in one of his tunnels;

Ty and Lacey talking while walking across the golf course;

An alternate version of the scene where Smails gets hit with golf ball in the groin;

Another scene between Ty and Lacey on some boat (some stills and lobby cards also show a part where Ty talks on the phone while Lacey whispers in his ear in the same deleted scene).

Chevy Chase is ashamed of his participation in the sequel, which he only took part in as Warner Bros. had pressured him and the other actors of the first movie into making a sequel. None of the others bowed to the pressure though, and Warner Brothers attempted to sueRodney Dangerfield for refusing to participate after citing a lack of confidence in the script. When asked about it in a interview with David Letterman, his response was an apathetic "Yeah, yeah I think I'm in that." Even looking at his role in the film, he seems disinterested in being there.

Harold Ramis (who wrote and produced the original film) also hated the sequel; once again, he only participated after Warner Brothers continued to put pressure on him.

The first film for Ramis, as he had many disagreements with the cast over direction.

A good deal of Bill Murray's dialog was improvised on the set, including his now-classic sportscaster monologue.

"It's in the hole! It's in the hole!"

The oil massage scene with Chevy Chase was also completely improvised. When Lacy exclaims "You're crazy!" that was Cindy Morgan's genuine reaction to Chase dousing her with oil.

Murray improvised the scene with Peter Berkrot in which Carl holds a pitchfork to Angie's throat. According to Bekrot, he was genuinely nervous during that scene because the pitchfork was real.

Troubled Production: It may now be considered a comedy classic, but it sure had a hell of a time getting there:

The film was originally supposed to be a simple coming-of-age story about kids working at a golf course, with Danny (Michael O'Keefe) and Tony (Scott Colomby) as the main characters. It slowly morphed into a showcase featuring comedy veterans like Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray (whose parts were originally supposed to be much smaller), and Ted Knight. Much of the dialogue was improvised on the spot, and production was extremely disorganized.

On the first day of shooting, Hurricane Dave came through, and production had to wait to begin filming until the storm passed and the flooding cleared. The Florida weather proved intense for the cast/crew, who were often unwilling to film, and there were frequent no-shows on set. Sound recording was also frequently ruined by planes flying over the golf course.

Cindy Morgan was uncomfortable with doing nude scenes, and while Harold Ramis was willing to change the script, producer Jon Peters told Morgan that her career would be over if she refused. Peters then invited photographers from Playboy to the set to photograph her, which angered her greatly, and she, with Ramis' support, again refused to do the scene until the photographers were sent home. In a 2010 interview, Morgan stated that she voluntarily put her career on hold as a result of the experience.

In addition, few co-stars got along. Chevy Chase and Cindy Morgan got into a scuffle, and almost refused to do their scene. Ted Knight, usually an easy person to get along with, got completely fed up of the improvisation and on-set shenanigans, and didn't get on with either his young co-stars or Chase and Dangerfield. Bill Murray, who was only available for six days, also didn't get along with Chevy Chasenote When Chevy hosted SNL during its second season, he and Murray nearly came to blows just before the show began., and when execs insisted on them having a scene together, everyone in the production feared what would happen, but fortunately the scene turned out beautifully. Also, the cast/crew partied hard every night, getting stoned out of their minds, wrecking the golf carts and ruining the golf course on a regular basis.

After the filming ended and the rough-cut came in, it was too long, and over two hours had to be cut. This also included key parts of the main plot, and the film made no sense, so more money had to be spent on a mechanical gopher to add extra comic relief and to tie the picture together; as its scenes were shot after principal photography had wrapped with higher quality film stock and on an indoor soundstage, there is a noticeable difference (even on the DVD release) between the picture quality of the gopher scenes and that of the rest of the film.

The country club at which location filming took place were wary of the damage the explosions in the film's climax would cause to the golf course, so a hill had to be specially constructed and the country club executives invited to an off-site meeting while the explosions were set off without their knowledge. However, the explosions were so powerful that the hill was completely destroyed, and the pilot of a passing flight to Fort Lauderdale mistook them for a plane crash and radioed the airport accordingly.

The film was not a critical success when it came out, and co-writer/producer Douglas Kenney, who verbally abused reporters while drunk at a press conference for the film, fell thirty feet from a clifftop viewpoint in Hawaii to his death a month later (there is some question as to whether his death was suicide or an accident; in the weeks leading up to his death, he had begun joking about his past suicide attempts, leading friends to urge him to seek professional help).

To the end of his life, even though the film became better appreciated over time, Harold Ramis was dissatisfied with his directorial debut. "All I see are compromises and things we could have done better," he told GQ magazine in the late 2000s. His greatest complaint was that no one in the film other than Michael O'Keefe was able to swing their golf clubs properly.

Caddyshack II didn't have it much better:

After the original film's release, Rodney Dangerfield repeatedly advocated that a sequel be made, but Ramis kept refusing the idea, not keen on reliving the first film's chaotic production. After a few years, Dangerfield and Ramis worked out a compromise whereby Ramis would co-write the script, but someone else would direct, and Dangerfield selected Alan Metter, who he had recently worked with on Back to School.

While Ramis and co-writer Peter Torokvei were working on the script, Dangerfield soon came to blows with Jon Peters, who had fully taken over the producer's role (which he shared with the since-deceased Douglas Kenney on the first film) and demanded that the sequel be PG-rated in order to appeal to a wider audience. Dangerfield was angered by this, as it would preclude him from ad-libbing the edgier material that he had done in the first film (which was R-rated), and when Peters refused to back down he ended up quitting. Peters then fired Metter and replaced him with Allan Arkush, and Ramis and Torokvei, not wanting to do the film without Dangerfield, walked shortly after that.

Filming eventually started with Jackie Mason in the lead role, and Chevy Chase as the only returning actor from the first film, something even he later admitted regretting, and only did because he was offered a comparatively huge amount for just a few days' worth of shooting. Filming wasn't as problematic as that of the first film, but Arkush insisted on staging scenes at a slow, deliberate pace — something he had similarly done on Heartbeeps — neutering what little comic timing the script (rewritten by around a half-dozen uncredited ghost writers) still had.

This time around the film was unable to overcome its behind-the-scenes issues, and the end result was critically mauled and made back less than half of its budget at the box-office, with Arkush never again helming a theatrically-released movie, and Ramis considering it arguably the lowest point of his entire career. Adding insult to injury, Bill Murray successfully sued the producers for royalties relating to the gopher character, which he originally created in the first film, but was never asked for permission to re-use in the sequel.

Harold Ramis has said that he was told that Rodney Dangerfield was interested in doing the second movie. Dangerfield actually was attached, but was displeased with the script (as many turned out to be). With no suitable rewrites, he backed out.

Also averted. The filmmakers seemed to be asking themselves this when they realized that Bill Murray and Chevy Chase didn't have a scene together. Thankfully, they made one up pretty quickly.

Carl Spackler was originally a silent character in the script inspired by Harpo Marx. But after Murray was cast, Ramis encouraged Murray to speak and improvise.

Ramis wanted to use Pink Floyd to write music for the film (and right after they had released The Wall, no less), but they politely declined.

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